


Saved By You

by eugeneismyqueen



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Married Couple, New Dream Week 2020 (Disney), One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:35:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24316669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eugeneismyqueen/pseuds/eugeneismyqueen
Summary: They always found a way to save each other. It was kind of their thing.
Relationships: Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider & Rapunzel, Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel
Comments: 2
Kudos: 81





	Saved By You

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Hurt/Comfort day for New Dream Appreciation Week May 2020.

“Your highness, something happened today while the Captain was out.” 

Rapunzel’s heart stopped cold in her chest. She stared at the guard in front of her, but she felt as if she didn’t hear him right. _“What?”_

“Queen, your husband—“

He didn’t get to finish his statement before Rapunzel was dashing out the door and down the long hallways of the castle, cursing every long winding hall and the giant vestibules currently keeping her apart from Eugene. 

She shoved past the guards and handmaidens blocking her path to her other half. 

“Your highness.” 

“Your Majesty.”

“Queen.”

Rapunzel’s vision was clouded. She couldn’t figure out whose voice belonged to whom. Her mind was on overtime, too focused on _Eugene._

She crashed through the doors of the infirmary, trying to blink back tears, her chest heaving from how quickly she had managed to cross the castle in order to get to him. The doctor looked up to her and the guards around the room bowed at her presence. Two nurses were tending to a body laid out on the cot before her. Bottom lip quivering, Rapunzel edged forward, eyes glued to her husband’s form on the bed. He looked lifeless, color drained from his face and blood, there was so much blood staining his already red uniform. 

She fell to her knees at his side, gripping his hand, freed from his white gloves. She felt like she was watching the man she loved die all over again. She felt like the same powerless girl in the tower, except this time, even her tears couldn’t save him. 

“Sunshine?” He croaked and her eyes snapped to his.

“Eugene,” she cried, a new wave of tears leaping forward.

“Sunshine, it’s alright. I’m gonna be okay.” He tugged on her hand and pulled her closer towards him. His hand released hers and found her face, fingers gently caressing her hair and her cheek. He forced her to keep her eyes on him. “It’s a flesh wound Rapunzel. I’m not going anywhere.”

She focused on his touch, his voice, his words. _He’s not going anywhere._ She nodded, it was all that she could do. 

“Your majesty,” the doctor addressed her. “Your husband needs some stitches in order to heal properly, you likely won’t want to watch this---”

“I’m staying with him.” Her words were sharp, her eyes wide and scarily firm. The doctor nearly recoiled from her bite. But he simply nodded instead.

“Very well then.”

Eugene was given some liquor to drink, to numb the pain. He kept his eyes on Rapunzel otherwise he knew he’d lose his focus. She helped the doctor remove his jacket and shirt, finally she could see the damage of a deep cut across his shoulder. She choked on another sob before locking eyes with her husband again, wondering what in the world he had gotten himself into to be cut like this. 

“Eugene,” she whispered, smoothing her hands through his hair, his name slipping from her tongue over and over again. 

The procedure was quick, but still Rapunzel choked on tears every time Eugene’s face scrunched in pain as the needle pierced his skin, sewing his wound back together. She just kept running her hands over his hair and clenching his left hand, far away from his injured right shoulder.

* * *

He was out of it for a while. Laid up in bed on the finest painkillers and sleeping agents that Corona’s royalty could afford. But Rapunzel never left her husband’s side. She had all of her most important meetings postponed or cancelled, and allowed her father to step in and handle the rest. Her crown and her kingdom could wait when Eugene needed her. 

She sat up in bed beside him while he slept, electing to pass the time by trying to read and draw in her sketchbook. She still didn’t know how it had happened, he hadn’t been lucid enough yet to tell her. Instead she changed his bandages like she had insisted the doctor show her. She kept his forehead cool in case he developed a fever while his body healed. She read to him when he would begin to twitch in his sleep from nightmares.

By the third day, Eugene asked that they not put him to sleep all day anymore. He was starving and he didn’t like the fuzzy feeling in his brain from all of the drugs. Eugene always got a little grumpy when he was sick, but recovering from an injury somehow seemed to make him even grumpier.

“You’re babying me,” he pouted as Rapunzel tried to spoon feed him some soup one afternoon. “I can get up and walk down to the banquet hall, sweetheart. You don’t have to treat me like I’m dying.” Unfortunately for him, his wife was still sensitive around the word “dying” seeing as his death had traumatized her for life and she felt like she was watching him die all over again  
just a few days before. 

Her eyes glazed over in tears and a string of expletives slipped from his lips. He didn’t mean to make her cry.

“Oh, no, no, no. Sunshine, don’t cry, please. I’m okay.” He held his good arm out towards her, inviting her to crawl in against his chest, “come here, baby.”

But she shook her head. She swiped her eye with the back of her hand and held up his soup again. “You have to eat.”

“No. I want you to come give me a hug.” 

“Eating will make you feel better.” She stayed firmly planted where she was, clutching the bowl of soup as her last defense.

“Your hugs will make me feel better.” He was pouting again and her resolve was going to start crumbling any minute.

To placate him, she leaned forward and kissed his cheek, then moved away quickly before he could pin her against his side. 

_“Suuuunshineee,_ why won’t you cuddle with me?” He batted large eyes at her. 

She knew just how to play back.

“Why won’t _you_ tell me what happened the other day?”

He sighed. He tugged the bowl of soup out of her hands and twisted his body to set it on the table beside their bed. Eyes back on her, he took both of her hands into his left hand. 

“I was doing a round, when I spotted a break-in and robbery in progress. Max and I went to go investigate and the thief surprised me, and … well … stabbed me.” His face fell. “They got away, Rapunzel. I couldn’t catch that thief and they got away. They could be out there, hurting more people.” 

He was always so hard on himself. It wasn’t his fault he was stabbed, there wasn’t anything he could have done differently. Well, he could wear some armor, but she’d fight that battle with him another day. 

“It’s not your fault, Eugene.” There were tears pooling in her eyes. She hated the thought of him so torn up over this, but she was still so scared at just how easily he could have died if that thief had aimed his dagger a little differently. 

“Still, I could have done more. Max could have gone after him but he brought me back to the castle instead.”

“Eugene,” Rapunzel said sharply. “Max would never leave you to die. Your safety, your life, is more valuable than catching the bad guy right then and there. Stop beating yourself up over it.”

He met her eyes and softened at the sight of her. He released her hands to caress the side of her face, rubbing his thumb over her cheekbone. “I just don’t want them to hurt anyone else either. Not everyone is so lucky as me to have someone like you to love them, princess.” 

Despite being a queen, he refused to stop addressing her as his princess. She smiled. She loved the nickname. But still she wouldn’t let his charms sway her right now. She stayed firm even as he played with her hair. And then she completely burst into tears. 

Eugene pushed himself up against the pillows as best as he could, eyes wide with alarm. “R-Rapunzel? What’s wrong?? Come here.” 

“No I can’t!” She cried, burying her face in her hands. 

_“Sunshine?”_

“I can’t heal you, Eugene!” She wailed. “I can’t fix you and if I touch you or hug you I’m so scared of hurting you. And I am _USELESS_ , Eugene. I can’t do anything if you were to end up in another life or death scenario there is _NOTHING_ I could do to keep you alive. My tears won’t fix you anymore. I can’t do anything but change your bandages and give you _SOUP.”_

She fell face forward into the bed, scrunched up like an inchworm and heaving with sobs. It was almost _funny_ how cute she was, so distraught over being normal. But he couldn’t laugh. Because he _knew_. He’d died before and that had broken her heart, even though they were still nearly strangers to each other then, they wanted to fight for each other. He could understand how painful it must be to grow up with this amazing ability to heal people, and then have it ripped away right when you have a real loved one who is an idiot like Eugene, who gets himself into a lot of real trouble. Such is the life and the pledge of the captain of the guard. 

Rapunzel felt Eugene’s hand swallow her back, he rubbed soothing circles over her body. Finally she risked a glance up at him, her nose snotty and her cheeks stained with tears and beet red. Even like this, she was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. Maybe because it’s him she was worried about and crying over, maybe because she was his wife. But mostly because he loved her. 

“Rapunzel, my love, will you come here, please? You won’t hurt me. Nothing will make either one of us feel better right now until you’re in my arms.” 

She crawled to him and laid her head against his non-injured shoulder. He wasn’t wearing a shirt so she could change his bandages easily, and she was suddenly glad for the feel of his warm, bare skin beneath her ear. She pressed her palm over his heart and felt it beat steadily on. She sniffled, trying to breathe through the pain choking her up. Eugene’s good arm wrapped around her, holding her firmly against him. There was no chance of him letting her go anytime soon now that he had finally caught her. 

“Please don’t die,” she whispered against his skin, carefully memorizing every hair, freckle, and scar across his chest. 

“Sunshine, whether you have magical healing hair or tears or not, you’ll always find a way to save me. Always. That’s your thing.” He pressed kisses against her forehead, breathing in the smell of honey and jasmine in her hair. 

“I love you, Eugene.” She held him tighter, snuggling into his chest and enjoying the feel of being wrapped up in his warmth. 

They always found a way to save each other. It was kind of _their_ thing.


End file.
